IJIRST –International Journal for Innovative Research in Science & Technology| Volume 2 | Issue 07 | December 2015 ISSN (online): 2349-6010
Development of Indian Coal Industry Specific Environment Audit Format V. K. Rai Chief Manager(civil) Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, India
Dr N. S. Raman Dy Director & Head Environmental Audit Division National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur, India
Dr S. K. Choudhary Professor K.D.K. College of Engineering, Nagpur, India
Abstract Environmental audit has been incorporated as one of the business principles in almost all the industries throughout the world. In India, Regulatory authorities have mandated to submit environmental statement in Form V, which the industry is under obligation to comply. In Indian coal industries, the submission of environmental statement in form V is scrupulously done as mandated by the rules since 1993 itself. Apart from Form V, there are number of returns, which are to be submitted by Coal Industry in fulfillment of statutory provisions. The entire process spaced in the year at different times baffles the field Environment engineers. Therefore a need is felt to have a comprehensive format for Environment Statement, which covers all the statutory requirements at the same time covering all the pollution aspects of the Coal mining industry. This paper, highlighting, the gaps in existing format & suggests a new Coal industry specific format for adoption across the Coal Industry. This developed format may be considered by the MoEFCC for adoption and till then may be implemented by Coal Companies for creation of data base. Keywords: Form v, Environment Statement, Audit, Coal, Pollution _______________________________________________________________________________________________________
I. INTRODUCTION Environment audit is a management tool and provides a structured and comprehensive mechanism for ensuring that the activities & products of an enterprise do not cause unacceptable effects on the environment. Submission of an environment statement by polluting units seeking consent under the water (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act 1974, Air (Prevention & Control of Pollution) Act 1981 or both and the authorization under the Hazardous Waste ( Management & Handling) Rules 1989 has been made mandatory through a Gazette Notification of April 1993 under the Environment ( Protection) Act,1986. The Environmental statement enables the units to undertake a comprehensive look at their industrial operations and facilities; understanding of material flows and focuses on areas where waste reduction & consequently saving in input cost is possible. The primary benefit of environmental audit is that it ensures cost effective compliance of laws, standards, regulations, company policies etc. The legally binding character has not yet been accorded to environmental audit in India. Recently, while granting Environmental Clearance to the Projects, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC) is mentioning as one of the conditions to have an Environment Audit cell to monitor the implementation of Environmental Clearance conditions. The benefits of conducting environment audit of an industry are many, both to industry as well as to regulatory agencies. At present there are many compliance forms related to environment aspects of the Industry, which they have to submit at different times as mandated by the corresponding statutes. On close perusal and examination, it is observed, that there is an urgent need to have one Environmental Statement format, wherein all the environment related information, disclosures and compliances are done, so that the entire environment related aspects of the industry can be obtained at a glance and needful & timely corrective actions are taken at the critical areas.
II. IMPACTS OF COAL MINES Coal mining disturbs the geological conditions of mining area primarily due to the nature of the coal deposits, which are commonly extensive, covering large areas and consisting of multiple seams extending over significant vertical intervals. A. Open Cast Mining involves scraping away earth and rocks to get to coal buried beneath the surface. Open cast mining accounts for about 90 percent of the India’s total coal production. Even though it's highly destructive, industry often prefers open cast mining as it requires less labour and yields more coal than underground mining.
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